A wide range of herb lines is now sold in the UK to help create tastes and flavours, from mainstays coriander, parsley, basil and mint, to more specialist types such as rosemary, thyme and dill - available in both fresh-cut or living formats - to name a few. Together, the category has reached a retail value of £77 million a year across all varieties.
But the major players are still working hard to build on the growth of the sector and make the most of the increased interest in food and home cooking that has spread across the UK in recent years. This is more important than ever, now that consumers seem to be cutting their spending and opting for more nights in.
The Fresh Herbs group - made up of R&G Fresh Herbs in Surrey, Lighthorne Herbs in Warwickshire, Scotherbs, north of the border, Sussex-based Humber VHB and Swedeponic in Lincolnshire, as well as Israeli exporter Agrexco - is busy mounting its third annual campaign.
The 10-month initiative, which has seen its budget scaled down significantly this year due to the financial climate, continues to engage the media with hints and tips, to increase the volume and frequency of purchase.
Mathew Prestwich, chairman of the British Herb Trade Association and a partner at R&G Fresh Herbs, is positioning the Fresh Herbs website - www.fresh-herbs.co.uk - as the focal point of the campaign.
“Our aim is to get regular users returning to the website for hints and tips on how to care for, store and use fresh herbs all year round,” he says. “We are trying to grow the category by using the website to try and remove some of the mystery surrounding the use of herbs, helping consumers understand how they can use fresh herbs every day.”
Coriander is far and away the UK number-one herb, making up 18-25 per cent of total sales, while the top six lines, including flat and curly parsley, basil and mint, together account for 60 per cent of retail sales. Thyme, rosemary, chives, dill, sage and tarragon make up the next tier, while a third band includes speciality or less-used products, such as lemongrass, oregano and bay leaf.
“Coriander is still the nation’s favourite fresh herb,” says Prestwich. “It is really versatile and can be used in all kinds of foods, from curry and pasta to salads and sandwiches. This is followed by basil and curly and flat leaf parsley. Together, these three herbs make up about two-thirds of the total market volume.”
The fresh-cut format is still the most popular across the board and consumers buy into this before trading up to potted product, when fresh herbs become more frequently used in their kitchen. The cut lines make up some 45 per cent of sales, while potted product represents around 30 per cent, and herb bunches - generally weighing more than 35g - make up 19 per cent.
Leon Mundey, marketing manager at potted herb specialist Humber VHB, says production this year has so far encountered fewer hurdles than in 2008. “It was problematic last year because poor weather conditions affected growers in the UK and overseas, but this year has been good so far,” he explains. “But costs are still difficult. Energy prices have fallen, but producers are still under great pressure caused by the weak performance of sterling against the euro.”
The Fresh Herbs campaign aims to override some of these issues, with continued promotion and hard work to keep building on the progress made in previous years.
Fiona Lamotte, managing director at Scotherbs, says the group members must both work together and on their own, in their own geographical areas, to try to promote the category. “We are focusing on maintaining and growing sales, both through the Fresh Herbs website and on an individual basis,” she says. “The members are spread out through the UK so we can all do our bit and try to work through the retailers, which have been very supportive.
“The Christmas period traditionally sees everyone being a bit more experimental with cooking and the sales uplift continues into January, when there is more emphasis on healthy eating and people tend to cook at home after the festive excess.
“But to continue to grow demand and boost sales, there need to be more recipes out there and we need to make sure that there is no shortage of herbs.”
The herb category will continue to be pushed forward by breeding and research, both in the UK and elsewhere.
Tozer Seeds has been breeding parsley for more than 20 years and has been working on other herb lines for about a decade. The Surrey-based breeder is releasing a number of new varieties this year, to help extend the UK offer. The first is a coriander named Calypso, with reduced bolting, while the second is a red basil still named T25029, which is the first in that colour to have a Genovese leaf type. The third is Christmas basil, with a powerful aroma, which will be released into the UK for the first time following success in the US.
David Rogers, UK sales manager at Tozer, confirms that the category is growing all the time, with increased interest from growers and suppliers. He maintains that ongoing breeding and research programmes will be key to taking the category forward. “There are all kinds of varieties in supermarkets all the time, both in potted and cut formats,” says Rogers. “But we are doing a lot of work with herbs and we have had more interest from growers and more calls for research to be done on different aspects of the products.
“Herbs differ from traditional vegetables in that there has not been that much work done on breeding and research, so there is a lot of scope to improve them. Our aims are to refine varieties, increase uniformity and vigour, boost disease resistance and improve chilling tolerance.”
The most popular varieties released by Tozer have included a coriander for potted production, named Bilbo, a basil named Puck, which has a Genovese leaf, as well as Confetti, a coriander with a fine leaf.
The Fresh Herbs group does not invest collectively in research and development, but each member has its own budget. “Most herbs are already available in the market, so R&D tends to focus on improved species rather than new varieties,” says Mundey. “Improvements to flavour and shelf life are also on the agenda.”
The UK season stretches from April to September, or even October and, in that time, around 85 per cent of the product available in the UK is home grown.
The portfolio of countries that tops up the UK market throughout the rest of the year is expanding, with rising costs and increasingly temperamental weather patterns forcing importers to consider new options. The biggest exporters of herbs to the UK are Israel and the south of Spain, but newer sources such as Cyprus, Morocco, Egypt, Thailand, Ethiopia and Colombia are coming into play.
Israeli production accounts for a significant proportion of UK imports and will continue to hold its own at the forefront of breeding and research in the herb category.
This time last year, the sector was picking itself up from a bout of disastrous weather conditions in January, when temperatures in Israel dropped to -3°C for five days, followed by storms and 150km winds. This time around, the season has shaped up far better, much to the relief of growers and exporters.
Israeli exporter Agrexco supplies around 35 herb lines to the UK and at the top of the list are basil, chives, mint and coriander, as well as chervil, which is gaining in popularity, especially in the foodservice sector.
Mike Caddy, product manager for herbs at Agrexco, is convinced that the firm’s long-standing relationship with UK multiples will see it through the tough times. “We have a long-term relationship with our customers, going back more than 20 years,” he says. “We support the UK industry and domestic production because we believe that the main thing is that consumers get the highest quality product. We are proud to say that we have supported the Fresh Herbs campaign from the start and we were one of the initial voices in pulling it together.
“We believe that while it is a generic activity for which we might not see the immediate benefit, we will only benefit if awareness is kept up and the category does expand. We believe that herbs can add value to a meal.
“This time last year, everyone was suffering,” he continues. “This season, the weather has been good from a growing point of view and we have not seen the shortage that we did last year. Product quality is improving all the time with the improved daylight and sunshine.”
But the exchange rate between sterling and the shekel this year has thrown up other concerns for growers and exporters.
“We have tried to placate growers in terms of their needs and try to limit unnecessary expenses,” says Caddy. “We have gone to our customers and asked them to look at the prices they are prepared to pay, to try to return more money to the growers. In some cases we have succeeded, but not in others.”
But as the market gets increasingly competitive and buyers are looking out for the best prices, newer sources are emerging as potential alternatives to the more well-established exporting countries.
Cyprus, for one, has become increasingly popular as a source of fresh herbs, with sales increasing by 10-15 per cent each year. Philip Philippou, marketing manager at Cypriot exporter Alion, is confident that this trend will continue. “Growers have been diversifying,” he says. “Israel has been in control of the winter herb industry for many years, but we are finding that importers are now looking to Cyprus as an alternative. There is a lot of aroma in what we produce because our climate is well suited to herb production.
“We pack and control all of our production, so we know exactly what we are dealing with.
“Cypriot growers, as a whole, are very positive about the herb category and are investing a lot of money into it. Our target is to grow sales 10-15 per cent every year, to keep building on what we have done so far.”
Both growers and exporters in the UK and overseas believe there is still a lot of potential growth to be had in the category. This will only be unlocked, it seems, by continually plugging away at promotional initiatives and getting more easy-to-cook recipes out into the public arena.
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